Thawed
by soutipidneres
Summary: Five years into the future, Finn and the Flame Princess are thriving together stronger than ever. Jake and Lady Rainicorn have their hands full with children. With the dynamic duo putting away their questing toys, what is the Ice King to do but long for a honey of his own? Maybe it's time to return to his mischievous ways. Or has a princess finally fell into his lap on her own?


A droplet of water trickled down an icicle and gracefully dangled from its tip, threatening to take the drop to the frozen floor tens of hundreds of feet below. There wasn't any telling if it would become a part of the ice fortress again once it got there, or just grow until it ran like a stream, into the frigid lake that stood stagnant outside. There had been countless occasions over the past five years where the hallowed mountain almost melted into completely nothing. If it finally decided to do so now, it wouldn't have been very alarming.

Needless to say, the temperatures had been fluctuating throughout the Ice Kingdom. Intense, warm wind fronts blowing in from the Fire Kingdom could have been the cause, or maybe Mother Nature was finally having her say. None of it seemed to matter to the sole inhabitant of the ice palace, lazing comfortably on a throne of many as he enjoyed the flow of time and the thawing of his forbidding home.

His favorite penguin companion, Gunter, snuggled under his right arm, watching his outstretched left arm avidly as his thumb ever so slowly fell repeatedly upon a big red button embedded into a projector remote. They were watching a manual slideshow of his 'phenomenal' photography of Gunter's body parts for the umpteenth time, but the cozy solemnness of the moment had them too absorbed to care.

A fat drop of water fell upon her neck, and Gunter wriggled a bit, making a soft sound to alert the king before she noticed the glazed look in the man's alabaster eyes. It would have been hard to spot by anyone else, but after being with the man for so long, she just knew things like this by now. His finger continued to move regardless; his expression implacably stoic. What could possibly be on his mind right now, she wondered?

That was all she could do lately. The Ice King had undoubtedly taken a huge blow five years ago, and since then, he had become progressively worse. She couldn't begin to fathom how things could get any more awful. For his relentless princess hunting-or any of his evil doings, at that-to come to such an end like this had been unthinkable. But this was it.

Ever since the Flame Princess had started accompanying Finn on his adventures to thwart the Ice King's every endeavor, those endeavors started to become lesser and lesser until they were nothing at all. He had felt betrayed, or perhaps replaced was a better word?

Replaced by a woman. How it was possible, he had no idea. Finn just didn't have time to focus solely on him anymore. Maybe he'd never focused solely on him to begin with, but it was a pleasant deception while it lasted. Perhaps he was tired of the childish games. That's all they had ever really been. Sure, he really did want to find a princess that would love him unconditionally, but he knew he would never have that again. But all of that had ceased to matter as Finn and Jake slowly became engraved into his life.

Now, that was over, too. Finn had grown into a handsome young man who could think of nothing but the Flame Princess, and Jake had Rainicorn and their horse puppies. And he, as always, had nothing. No princess to account for all the trouble he had gone through just for it all to amount to nothing. Not even his own traitorous son. He'd though that he, Finn and Jake would be bachelor pals forever. Well, maybe not Jake…

Gunter squawked louder, finally getting his attention. He looked down at her bleakly and sighed, rubbing his eyes and finally turning the projector off. He dropped her unceremoniously to the ground as he dragged his feet off towards the bathroom, leaving her scoffing in his wake. It was understandable that he was at an all-time low, but she was still someone, wasn't she? After all these years of being unappreciated, she still stuck around, didn't she? But she was nothing more than chopped liver, apparently.

Ice King yawned as he reached the mirror, blinking dumbly at the reflection he saw. In his 1000+ years of living, he had never really witnessed much change in his appearance. Save for the fact that his beard would get longer, there would be some additional wrinkles, and he would become frailer. But for a while now, he'd been noting some worthwhile changes.

Sitting around all day in this freezing place was proving to have a positive effect on his weight, and his wrinkles were started to tighten up as well. Over the time, he had found an effective way to maintain his beard so that he could stylize it without it growing back ridiculously fast. The way he had it cut made him look infinitely more handsome, even if he was the only one around to say so. He had even started growing some hair back on his head, which he had styled to perfection. And last, but not least, in his ninja practices, his body was as toned as it had ever been in his human and wizard years combined. Yes, it seemed that the absence of a lot of well-placed stress had transformed him into one fine arse bachelor.

If only all of the princesses that had rejected him in the past could see him now. Some small part of him wished they could, so he could reject them just as many times.

But the bigger part of him didn't care about any of that anymore. He was tired of all the heartbreak in his life, and was starting to embrace solitude. A haughty squawk from Gunter then reminded him that he wasn't _completely_ alone. He rolled his eyes at her as he strolled past, back into what he now deemed his living room area. Not even a penguin could fill the void of loneliness he had frozen over in his heart.

He found himself stopping at the window that faced towards the North of Ooo, placing his hand on the damp wall as his heart plagued him like it did every once in a while. Embracing solitude as he was, he still had that natural urge to settle down with someone. He was coming to realize that there was never really anyone who could truly fill this hole in his heart besides her. All of his princess terrorizing had been for naught. Even his hard dying obsession with Princess Bubblegum was nothing compared to the longing he still felt for that woman. The woman he'd once tried to recreate, and had let slip through his fingers yet again-again being only figurative.

Sometimes, he'd wonder if he was ever worthy of holding her in the first place. There had to be a more supernatural reason as to why she ran from him; the man that she'd supposedly loved to death. She had to have known that whatever that cursed crown had caused him to do, it was never really him, right? And for her to never come back? There was no plausible explanation!

The pain might not have been ever-present, but his mind would always wander like this, dangerously close to that edge of ruthless, pessimistic oblivion from whence there'd be no return. But then he'd have to snap himself back. He'd have to remind himself with that annoyingly foolish hope that he could still hear the voice of her-or his freakish incarnation of her-traveling back on the gentle breezes at night, from the moon eons away. Always telling him that they would meet again.

And when that happened, he would take hold of her and never allow her to leave again. He'd do whatever necessary to make her fall helplessly, madly in love with him again. He dug his nails into the wall until a chunk easily fell away, vowing in his heart that he would never suffer such an enduring pain ever again.

"Betty…"


End file.
